Danny McBride Explains Exactly What Was Up With That ‘Dundee’ Super Bowl Ad

When teasers for Dundee, a purported sequel-reboot of famous fish-out-of-water comedy Crocodile Dundee, hit the Internet a few weeks ago, we have to admit they had us for a second. The production value, plus the fact that each ad features a bunch of recognizable stars made it look like this could be a real movie, or perhaps an advertisement for a Kickstarter for one. But how could so many stars have filmed all of this entirely in secret? Australia’s not that far out of the way. On Super Bowl Sunday, the true purpose was revealed: It’s a Tide ad. Just kidding. It’s an elaborate tourism commercial.

Dundee is part of a two-year, 150-video-long campaign to get Americans to come back to the land down under. The ad company, Droga, crunched some numbers and figured out that the last major spike in Australian tourism happened during the release of Crocodile Dundee and its sequel. So, what better way to bring Americans back to the country than to bring Dundee back to them? U.S. tourism is worth about $3.7 billion a year to the Australian economy, and Droga plans to increase that to $6 billion within the next two years.

A Dundee reboot “seemed silly enough that it’s something that Hollywood would do, and in this day and age, to get people’s attention by doing a fake movie trailer for a fake franchise seemed like a great idea,” the star of the campaign, Danny McBride, told The Hollywood Reporter. Two years and $27 million later, there’s a full campaign, which we’re sure to see more of within the next few years. More videos will feature McBride interacting with other Australian celebs, like crocodile wrangler Matt Wright, singer-actress Jessica Mauboy and celebrity chef Curtis Stone.

“Rather than creating more ads that sell Australia with a video and an inspirational soundtrack — because that stuff can just be turned into wallpaper — we wanted something that’s a little bit different. It’s a prank, but also a demonstration of that truth,” said Droga’s group strategy director Will Davie. Oh, and apparently having McBride star in them was Chris Hemsworth’s idea. Who knew?